Tech

3M's Magic Liquid Cannot Destroy Your iPhone

3M Innovations at SXSW

Novec Fluid

Your eyes aren't deceiving you: That's a monitor and iPhone floating in liquid. They're fine because the tank is filled with Novec, a non-conductive chemical from the "keystone family" used to reduce the temperature on servers, douse fires in race cars and even clean electronics. The iPhone in this picture was unharmed.

Super Tape

Mashable editor-at-large Lance Ulanoff sitting on a chair taped to the wall. The double-sided sticky VHB Tape from 3M is so strong that it is used to hold together planes and buildings.

Tape Art

Project Inspire Garment

The fashion students the Fashion School of Politecnico University in Milan, Italy, designed this prototype jacket that combines 3M’s Thinsulate reflective material and 3M’s Scotchgard. The team used body mapping to improve comfort and range of motion.

Flexible Touchscreen

The future of displays is curves -- and soon, flexibility. This roll of capacitive touchscreen material may lead the way.

Quantum Dots

Upcoming HDTV displays like the one in this photo (top) could offer an even more brilliant image thanks to Quantum Dots. 3M actually grows the tiny crystals responsible for the rich colors and then imbrues a transparent sheet with them. The dots block some of the blue light spectrum while helping to pump up the reds and greens.

Touch Panels

This touch panel screen can support up to 60 touch points.

Sheer Lighting

These lights, which hung overhead in the 3M tent, have standard LEDs on the inside, but specially created covering that creates warm and even lighting.

More Sheer Lighting

These fixtures feature 3M light-reflecting technology that help distribute the light from LEDs more evenly.

Optical Film

This thin, highly-reflected material is used in, among other things, electronics and architecture.

Post-it Notes

3M is perhaps most recognized for these sticky notes, which are also quite useful for creating art.

AUSTIN, Texas — Usually, if you drop your phone or tablet in liquid, you can pretty much bet it's a goner — or in need of immediate care.

But in a tub of technology company 3M's magic water, you can drop an unprotected iPhone and it will still work. We experienced this firsthand, along with other cool innovations like sticky tape used to hold planes together, at SXSW. Take a tour for yourself in the gallery above.

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